Who is the Immaculate Conception?

St Anne Conceiving the Virgin Mary by Jean Bellegambe. (Flemish painter c. 1480 - c. 1535)

This image of the Immaculate Conception is a visual reminder to us that it is Mary who was immaculately conceived. The woman in the painting is St. Anne, mother of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

This poem on the Blessed Virgin
introduced into our vocabulary that description of Mary
so apt for this feast of the Immaculate Conception:
nature's solitary boast...

The Virgin
Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature's solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;
Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Of mother's love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!

- William Wordsworth

-ConcordPastor